


pouring my heart out

by selinawrites



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Death Fix, Complete, Depressed Keith (Voltron), Depressed Lance (Voltron), Depression, Eating Disorders, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Minor Allura/Lance (Voltron), Nobody is Dead, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinawrites/pseuds/selinawrites
Summary: The war had taken much more than lives of innocent souls. Keith and Lance find themselves in a whirlwind battle with their own minds, locked in the forms of philosophical ramblings, painstaking evenings of nightmare-fueled screams, and monochrome prose.In the wake of Princess Allura's death and the months afterward, grief settles on everyone differently.





	pouring my heart out

**Author's Note:**

> i spent upwards 10 hours writing this story after voltron ripped my heart out. since it was clear they would not pay for a heart transplant, i decided to put it together myself. for 9/10 of those hours, i endlessly looped [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLrqm8F7TgM)  
> by the 1975 which i 100% suggest you loop whilst reading. the lyrics sum up klance s8 perfectly. <3
> 
> some reminders before reading:  
> -i never actually finished s8, so any inconsistencies please forgive as i am basing most post-canon content on spoilers.  
> -this does not intend to antagonise allurance. i love allurance so very much. this story accompanies the canon. my intention is for lance's love for allura to never be discredited. lance's canonical love for allura is so true, and i tried to convey that in my work.  
> -content warnings include: mild implication of eating disorders and self harm. overall theme of hopelessness and emptiness. characters struggle with their mental health post-canon.

Keith knew one thing too well, and it was that he could not stay on Earth.

There was nothing left for him on Earth. Absolutely nothing to come home to.

 

Keith saw the way that Shiro talked with Curtis, his new boyfriend. They would return home. They would return to Earth.

So would Pidge and Hunk. They’d get their phD’s talking about intergalactic space machinery or writing a New York Times bestselling novel. They had a whole future ahead of them, but for Keith, Voltron was his future.

 

He didn’t expect to live this long, quite frankly.

 

After the war, he ended up bouncing around different planets. He spent most of his time with the Blade of Marmora, but there was only so much to do. There was an influx of volunteers joining the Blade now that they opened the resistance fighter organisation to non-Galrans and former Haggar allegiants. 

He spent most of his early twenties with his mother, but then Krolia left with Kolivan to run some sort of special mission. 

 

And then, he was alone again. He always ended up alone.

 

The bitter truth was always that. Shiro always had someone to come home to, be it his Adam or Curtis. He didn’t know much about Adam, but Keith knew that Shiro loved Adam very deeply. The same could be said for Pidge and Hunk, who had brothers and sisters to take care of. Keith never had anyone to come home to, which was what allowed him to give his body and soul into the heart of the war. There was never a day that Keith thought he would make it out alive.

Even Lance had a family to come home to. He even had Veronica, the damned MFE cadet who was always trying to get time alone with Keith. Lance had a whole family to come home to, and he barely even returned after Allura’s death.

Keith tried not to think about Allura, as he paced the walls of a rebel base outside the former remnants of a main Galran core agency. The base was a haphazard mix of old scaffolding and new walls that were put up yesterday. The paint was as fresh as the newly liberated citizens.

 

He heard what the rebels spoke of him said. To them, he would always be  _ the red one _ . He didn’t follow the rigorous schedule that the rest of the freedom fighters followed. At 7am, they had to be awake and ready for training which lasted until lunch.

At lunch, they had to hunt for food themselves. They spent the day until sundown building the base and recovering salvageable materials from the village nearby. By the time the sun was down they ate their food in a haste while a Galran official read out the never ending tasks to do. In the morning, they got up and did it all over again. With time, the base slowly became more and more developed with more volunteers arriving on the base and coming from all walks of life. No person was exempt from this rule, not even the most high ranking of officials. Keith was the only one that didn’t have to do anything, and he walked around the base and got his way with every single thing he asked for.

 

Keith just did as he pleased. He wandered into the kitchen at odd times of the day and ate whatever he asked for. Keith knew that the other rebels stared at him, but they could never call him selfish. He was the Paladin of Voltron, and after everything he did for the rebellion, he should be able to eat whenever he damn pleased. When a freedom fighter asked Keith when he would get his act together and pitch in, Keith started screaming bloody murder and stormed off. He fell asleep under a pile of clothing donations. 

 

Keith woke up in the hospital wing with a clear plastic band with some foreign alphabet scrawled in red ink and tubes in his arm. He rips them out and wanders around the base once more.

It was a day after he got out of the hospital, and all of the rebels were staring at Keith as if he had seen a ghost.

While the other rebels began constructing a new wing of the barracks, Keith fell asleep under something that smelled vaguely reminiscent of a pine tree. 

The star system Keith was currently hopping along was a pleasant one, and this rebel base he had been staying in for six months. It was where they first brought Keith in once the war was over, since it was where Krolia was stationed at the time.

 

Keith remembers waking up for the first time in a world where the war was over. He was in a hospital bed and drenched in his own sweat. Allura’s blood was stained underneath his fingernails, and his tears would not stop flowing.

Since then, Keith hasn’t spoken a word and let alone allowed himself to cry. He didn’t know where his violent outburst came from, but it felt liberating.

 

He wanders around the base and stares off into the distance for long amounts of time. He found an old leather journal on the ground. He rips out the pages that have been written in alread and he uses that to sketch in sometimes. Words feel too heavy for him, and he was never the best at words to begin with. Sketching reminds him of Team Voltron’s collective dream about their game show. It reminds him of Lance’s eager voice. He draws the Blade in it’s former glory. He draws Arus and Earth before Sendak. He draws Lance and Lance coming out of his coma. He draw Lance and him stuck in the elevator shaft. He draws him and Lance watching the sunset on their final night on Earth. He draws Adam and Shiro and the wedding they never had. He draws Princess Allura, who smiles back at him sadly.

 

Suddenly, he no longer has the energy to draw. 

 

He walks closer to the heart of the encampment. The planet smells like a country right before its first frost, and the fire that he settles near smells like freedom and new hope. He lies down in a swath of blankets, not caring who owns them. Nobody speaks to him or expects him to do anything, and for some reason that makes Keith feel angrier than anything. They used to talk to Keith all the time. They used to tell Keith that his fighting freed them all. But since he yelled in the middle of the dining hall, all they see is a broken boy. 

It’s the old Keith’s favourite type of anger. The type that doesn’t shut you down, but empowers. It makes Keith almost angry enough to spark back to life. To help the struggling child with lifting up the plywood walls. Almost.

Instead he curls closer to the fire.

 

Keith knows what the other rebels say. They say that the war had broken more than the white-haired one’s arms. It had taken more than his fiancé.

They say the war had taken more than just the Green Paladin’s youth.

The war had stole more than the Yellow One’s innocence.

The rebels whisper. They say that the war took more than the Altean one’s daughter.

They say that the war took more than the Princess, and her life.

The war had broken more than the Blue One’s heart.

The war had taken more than the Red One's strength. Some say he barely even has the strength to speak these days.

 

He can’t help but miss the days when things made sense. Keith wants to cry, but instead he just stares into the fire. as the shadows flicker off of his face.

 

He wanders back into the newly constructed halls and tries to find the room he was assigned. He opens the door, and Keith’s heart drops.

It looks exactly like the rooms back in the Castle of Lions.

He takes the books and rips them from the spines. He shreds the pillows to pieces and punches a hole in the wall.

Keith was wrong. This anger wasn’t the type that empowers. It was the anger that consumes.

  
  


It’s late evening when Keith is dragged from his subconscious daze. It must have been weeks later, because a layer of dust had settled on the books that had been torn apart. He vaguely remembers having the weakness to shatter. He remembers the fire consuming him and collapsing on the ground. He doesn’t remember the last time he ate. 

His cast of nightmares always changed. Lance was always in it. His father, too. 

Shiro and Allura and Coran and even Lotor make an appearance. Pidge and Hunk and Axca and Griffin, they all stare back at him sadly.

 

“Keith, do you want to come with us to Thayserix?” Krolia asks her son a month later. She has a fresh scar on her face, and a bald streak running right below her hair. Krolia had just arrived from wherever her mission with Kolivan had taken her, and she looked older. Sadder.

 

How long had it been since Keith had met his mother for the very first time?

 

Keith looked up from his bed. Only the rebel officials and leaders get an entire room to themselves, but for some reason they had given Keith one. The fur blanket he had nestled in was freshly washed, and he was onto his second leather notebook. He barely writes in it and he never has the energy to draw anymore, but he presses leaves and charcoal smudges into it. Small things that he would never remember otherwise.

His index fingers and thumbs were smudged black, and his skin was pale and thin. If he looks close enough into his skin, he can see his green and grey veins lurking just beneath the surface. He wants to watch his skin cry blood like it did every single night when he fought the Galra.

Keith looked up at his mother and smiled sadly, crawling into his covers deeper and deeper.

He can’t possibly tell his mother why he can never go back to Thayserix. It was the place where he almost killed all of his team members.

It was where Lance saved him. Where he saved all of them.

 

He remembers Lance’s frantic voice as the atmosphere caved in on them. “What happened up there? Where’s the rest of the team?” Lance cried.

"This is all my fault. I followed him right into this trap. Everyone warned me, but I didn't listen. I put the entire team in jeopardy." Keith said hysterically. He knew he wasn’t cut out for the task. 

Keith almost smiles at the memory of who he was before he grew into the person he was today. He almost smiles at the fact that Lance helped him get there. Whether he liked it or not, Lance was a part of Keith’s history.

Lance sighed and moved his lion closer to Keith’s.  "Yeah, you kinda did. But now we gotta fix it." He replied, and the last of the wall had broken between them.

Keith stares off into the distance as the memory of how they first met slowly comes back to him.

* * *

 

Keith kept his head down and kept walking as he strained under the weight of his backpack and the textbooks he was carrying. Lay low. Don’t talk to anyone. Do not engage. That was his life motto, and it kept him away from the spotlight and ensured that the least amount of people would talk to him at any given moment. 

His tactic had worked for the most part. Up until now. “Why’d you do that, huh?” The gangly boy asked him. Keith kept walking. The voice was vaguely familiar, always in the background noise of Keith’s classes that all melted together.

Keith kept walking. On a particularly good day, he might just entertain the person asking him. It was always a new question every day.

 

“Hey Keith!” They began, sounding as if them and Keith were the best of friends as they readied themselves to pry the answer from Keith’s mind. “So tell me, how did you score a perfect 100 on your entrance exam?”

“Could you get me one-on-one training sessions with Professor Shirogane? I heard you guys are really close.”

“Is the rumour true? Did you sneak into the NASA facilities to test out their new space warfare weapons?”

“Did your parents really abandon you because you were gay?"

 

It was a new rumour every day. Sometimes they were true, but most of the time they were ridiculously incorrect. This person that was attempting to talk to him was persistent, though. 

“Hey, Keith.” He said, as Keith kept walking.

“Keith.” 

“Keith.” He tapped Keith’s shoulder.

“Keith.”

Keith spun around on his heel, staring at the boy in the eye. Keith was shorter than him by quite a few inches, but his death glare was mastered to perfection that it barely mattered. “What do you want?” Keith asked impatiently, as he tapped his toe on the marble floors as if he had something better to do. In reality he was probably going to lock himself in his dorm for the rest of the night.

 

The boy’s eyes widened, almost as if he didn’t expect Keith to answer even if he was trying to get his attention for the better half of five minutes. “I just wanted to ask how you managed to veer a 90-degree angle without having any execution space?”

Keith blinked and looked at the boy. He didn’t have the same hunger in his eyes that the rest of his classmates had. He lacked the eagerness to best Keith by uncovering his secrets. There was no maliciousness in his grin, just a humble curiosity. 

He shrugged. “I dunno. Just did it.”

His blue eyes twitched in confusion. “I don’t understand. We didn’t learn how to make turns like that. We’re learning that next year.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. Next year. When the pilot class gets divided into fighter pilots and cargo pilots. “Well. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on and next thing I know it, I was hurtling into a wall.”

His mouth stretched open into an O shape. As if he didn’t really understand what Keith meant. “So… you just turned?” He asked, as Keith watched him scratch the nape of his neck, where his dark brown cropped hair ended abruptly.

Keith cracked a smile, a sarcastic one that said, don’t you get it? and chuckled uneasily. “Yeah. I just turned.” As he walked away, leaving the boy a tangle of questions and stunned without words.  
  


 

   Keith later learns that his name is Lance, mostly because Iverson’s reprimands are almost always aimed at him. Lance hung out with some of the more popular, extroverted kids. He got along with James Griffin just fine. Lance was an alright pilot, and managed to make the on and off witty remark that sometimes made Keith smirk in his seat.

They were grouped in the same pilot cluster for the next semester. They were on the same team, and it became almost mechanical for Keith as he learnt every single impulse movement and habits that Lance had. He did that for every single one of this teammates, but he kept a closer eye on Lance. 

For the sake of the fact that he was more reckless than the others, of course.

They sometimes exchanged commands with each other, and were partners in projects. They got along just fine, but Lance never spoke to Keith again.

 

Over the summer, Keith spends the time mirroring Shiro and sitting in on meetings. He wanders the Garrison campus endlessly. Sometimes, he sees Lance in the summer school program but they barely exchange niceties.  Sometimes Lance will shoot Keith a tight-lipped smile in acknowledgement, but then they separate.

 

The next year, Keith gets into fighter class at the top of his class. No surprise there.

Lance gets into cargo pilot training, but the top of his class. Keith can’t help but feel for Lance. If he just did a little better on his final or if Kinkade got an essay question wrong, Lance could have gotten into fighter class.

 

They barely see each other, and Lance fades into the distance of Keith’s memory. Nothing really matters, not now that Shiro had gone missing. Not now that he punched Iverson for making an offhand remark. Lance doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things.

He’s in the desert now, starving and sick of the dry and itchy desert. Keith beats the memory of every single one of the Garrison students and staff to a bloody pulp.

Keith forgets about Lance entirely, until they meet again under the desert skies two years later.

  
  


“We were like rivals, you know Lance and Keith, neck and neck." Keith raised an eyebrow.

He remembered Lance, but only vaguely. But Keith certainly did not remember that about them. He remembered trading roles with Lance for the title of captain sometimes, but nothing more. He remembered Lance asking how he pulled off some of his stunts, but never them being neck and neck.

It was James Griffin he was neck and neck with, if anyone. 

Keith sighed, as the light from Lance’s eyes drained.  "Oh wait I remember you... you're a cargo pilot." He said, as the rush of memories threatened to spill.

The confused and slightly somber look on Lance’s face was replaced with hard anger and a competitive diatribe.  "I'm fighter class now, thanks to you washing out.”

Keith rolled his eyes.  "Well, congratulations.” He replies sarcastically. Not like Keith ever cared about his future as a fighter pilot anyways.

On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t have been so hard on Lance. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that he didn’t remember Lance, but what was he to say? That he remembers Lance from some grainy encounter two—almost three—years ago? “We gotta go. Before those Garrison people come back.” He said, as the hard-set look in Lance’s face appears again. The same look that he puts on while flying the simulators or running the drills.

 

He should have said something, if he had known that he would end up on an alien planet with the man. Keith quickly realises that they’re now a team, which means that no matter how many times him and Lance pick a fight, at the end of the day they have to shut up and work together. 

* * *

 

Keith can’t help but feel angry. All of them were on Earth for the welcome parade, all of them except for Lance. Shiro had to be the one to tell Lance’s parents that their son was never coming back. Shiro had to deal with their shocked faces. Because Lance never came back. He left them.

He left Keith.

No matter what, Shiro always came back for Keith. He always came back. It didn’t matter what form Shiro returned in, he always returned.

Keith always returned, too. Even when he left for the Blade of Marmora, he came back. Even when he left to ensure Lance had a spot on the team, he came back to make sure that his team knew he was still there for him.

 

“When was the last time you came out of your room?” Krolia asks softly, registering the blank look on Keith’s face.

Keith shrugged. Sometimes an attendant would come in with food and water on a ceramic plate. He ate it, and then went back to sleep. Time passed different at the rebel base.

 

“Keith. You should come with us. It would be good for you to get out of your room.”

He opened his mouth, but he didn’t have the words. Some days he would find himself wandering outside the halls of his room. Outside his room is a linen storage unit. He spent a whole day inside of the room, with the sunlight hitting his face and smelling the soft blankets from a plush cushion on the side of the room. It had been almost eight months since the war, and most of the rebel base was complete. The facility housed enough volunteers to ensure that the whole place was well maintained and cleaned regularly, and Keith watched the days go by as a spider spun a web.

 

He wanted to argue with his mother that he did spend time outside of his room. Yesterday he walked down the other wing of the base. There was a nook carved out of oak wood and glass was on the other side. He watched the rain patter down outside of the base, as he read through the first shipment of earth-culture-education textbooks that the children would be reading when school started up again.

But the rain wasn’t liquid, and more of an ash. It was a dark grey, and pelleted the base like hail. And the textbooks featured humans that were too happy.  Their smiles were too fake. There was no life behind their eyes, and the earth textbooks felt too fake. It was like he was learning what humans were for the very first time.

He slammed the textbook shut when he saw the faces of his teammates staring back at him. They used their old Garrison ID photos, and it looked all wrong. They still had an innocence in their eyes.

 

So, things weren’t exactly right. Keith decided to go back to sleep instead. When he woke, his mother was staring at him.

Keith shrugged, and stared at his sheets blankly.

Krolia looked at her son sadly, but there was nothing she could do. She knew how deeply the war had affected Keith, and some things just were bound to be. Some things he had to sort out for himself.

As she smiled empathetically at Keith and closed the door, Keith picked up the ceramic plate and smashed it into pieces up against the wall.

He watched as the white plate smashed into glittering pieces of sharp glass, drifting off to sleep once more.

 

When Keith wakes up, the sunlight is low and the room is painted golden. 

And the plate that had been shattered to fine shards of sharp dust had totally been taken away and swept out of his room.

There was a new plate on his side table, and it contained a serving double the portion to what it was last time.

 

Keith smashed that plate too, and threw the food onto the floor. He went back to bed.

 

In the morning, it was cleared.

In the morning, the food was back with an even larger portion, and two pills. One red, and one blue.

Keith crushes both of the pills and pulverises them into a fine purple dust. The medication infuriates him, and he smashes the plates once more. 

He drifts back to sleep.

 

When Keith wakes up, the same thing happens.

So he does it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

 

He doesn’t know how long he keeps up the charade, but he does know that for as long as he does it, there will always be food and medication when he wakes.

 

Ever since he first began smashing the plates, Keith barely leaves his bed. He draws sometimes, but his pencil he brought from Earth had been used to a stub. It sparks a dull pain in his chest. He gets so thin that he can see his ribs without even trying. The eyebags underneath his eyes darken, and he starts taking the medication.

 

One day, he starts wandering around the halls again. They enclosed the courtyard to make more room for the oncoming refugees. He sees Lance everywhere. He sees Lance in the rebels that help the children get off of the aircraft. He sees Lance in the teenage boy flirting with the girl. Keith sees Lance everywhere, and it makes no sense. Lance had never even stepped foot in this base, and yet he sees Lance in every etching of the wall. He can feel Lance’s spirit pulsate within the very core operative of this rebel base.

He can’t help but feel angry at Lance. Lance was the one that left.

A sinister part in his mind argues that Keith left after the war, too.

But Keith didn’t have anyone to go home to. Lance abandoned everyone. The only person Keith abandoned was himself.

 

He feels like taking a walk outside. Instead he goes back to sleep, and stops taking his medication.

  
  


Keith wakes to Krolia tersely talking to the head nurse, and him strapped to a hospital bed. They didn’t have healing pods this deep into the rebellion, as the shipment was still being given to further fringes of the rebellion, where most of the fighting took place.

When he woke, his mother would not stop talking.

“You have to go outside, Keith.” She began, as Krolia and the nurse discussed relocation options.

“There’s a new rebel base in Olkarion. Heavily influenced by the Green One’s technology.”

“Keith doesn’t want anything to do with his former paladins for now.” Krolia reasoned.

“Alright. What about the brand-new Earth settlement on Kerberos? It’s the most state-of-the-art facility in the entire coalition.” The nurse continued.

Krolia shook her head. “The Voltron Coalition dissolved with the death of Princess Allura.”

 

Keith stared down at his hands. He can still see the blood that splatters on it, even though everyone’s interpretation of the Princess and her death was vastly different. He gulped, as the two continued their debate.

 

“Why can’t we just keep Keith at this base?” Krolia argued.

“He’s slowly siphoning their resources. And it doesn’t seem like a positive contribution to his health. We could try Arus? Or the Balmera? Even Oriande, I hear, has opened itself to the rest of the universe.”

 

Keith ripped the tubes out of his arms, creating a cacophony of beeps from the medical machines. The nurse looked at Keith in alarm. He pushed past the nurse with ease, despite his weakened condition.

He began walking off into a sprint, with tubes of morphine spilling everywhere. In his deadened state, they could have very well been feeding him heroin and it wouldn’t have done anything. He was too far gone, and the worst part is that Keith relished in it.

Keith walked out of the medic bay. He just couldn’t lie there while his mother—who was absent from most of Keith’s life—and a complete stranger discussed where he would be put next. He was an adult, and he wouldn’t, be treated like a child when he was responsible for the fate of most the rebels right now.

 

He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he stumbles into a hall, which leads him into a bathroom.

Keith’s bathroom didn’t have a mirror. It barely had a sink. This bathroom looked similar to the ones at the Castle of Lions, with its pristine tiled floors and its crystal clear, spotless mirrors.

Keith takes a step back as he looks at his reflection for the first time in months.

His lips are cracked and bleeding, and the circles under his eyes are too prominent. He’s too skinny—skinnier than when he used to be when he spent his youth in foster homes. Keith used to look skinny, but hungry. Keith was always smaller than the rest of his classmates, but he had an innate hunger in him that always shined. But as Keith looked in the mirror, he looked skinny and empty.

There was no hunger in his eyes, no will to succeed. There was simply the shell of who he was before.

There’s scars all over his face, new and old. Some of the scabs he had picked at over his time in bed were bleeding onto his clothes. He had washed his face and hair up a few times since arriving at the base, but he was still wearing the same clothes he said goodbye to Lance in. 

He was wearing the clothes that he was wearing when Allura died.

Keith sucks in a breath as he takes in the person staring back at him. His hair is longer than it was when he was living in the desert, and it could be tied into a simple knot. Keith pulls out a small butterfly knife and begins to shear locks of hair from the ear and below with a haphazard disregard for neatness. Nothing looked right anymore. As he tried calling out for who he was before he heard nothing, just the sound of the knife cutting off Keith’s hair and nicking at the skin of his nape.

The childish almost innocent, part of Keith expects for his mother to walk in and hold him tight and promise that everything will be okay. She’ll comfort her son, like she never did while he was growing up.

He expects his best friend Shiro to walk inside the bathroom and sit across from him on the floor and listen as Keith spilled his sorrows. At the end, he’ll give Keith advice that Keith will take with him for the rest of his life.

He wants Pidge, or Allura, or Hunk to knock twice on the door and then envelop him in a large group hug. They’ll smile at each other and joke until the pain goes away.

Even Lance. He wants Lance to be here. The Lance that always knows what to say and what to do.

 

He wants all the ghosts that join him in his nightmares to come to life if just to console him.

* * *

 

Keith slowly grows back into who he was before, but not because he wants to.

A Marmoran official has a stern word with Keith one day, and the official calls him “ _ The poster child for the rebellion.”  _

 

He has to get cleaned up and sparked back to life not for his own sake, but for the sake of everyone else. It was a cruel and recurring theme in his life.

An attendant shows up every day without fail and will not leave until Keith takes his pills and eats his food. It doesn’t matter if he breaks a thousand plates or burns a million bridges. The rebellion was insistent on nursing him back to health.

He was the only one not part of the ridiculous propaganda stunts that Coran made them do. The Voltron shows that Keith couldn’t help but ache for.

Now that Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk were on Earth, they could not be contacted. Lance had disappeared off the face of the universe for anyone who cared, and Allura was dead.

 

The word resonated in Keith’s mind. Allura was  _ dead _ .

_ They _ killed her. They killed Princess Allura without remorse. They made her to be strong and fearless and independent. They put her through hell and killed her. There was no reason for her to die, and yet she did.

She died for a useless cause. She died because the universe said so. Because the universe would not have her be at peace. Allura died so the rest of them could live.

 

But did Allura really die so the rest of them could live? Hunk was haunted by the constant shadow of Voltron. Shiro was stuck trying to love in a world that had taken his first love from him. Lance had buried himself in his grief, as did Coran.

Only Pidge got a happy ending. Only she got a whole family and no important deaths and an optimistic  _ fucking  _ future.

Keith landed in the grasps of the rebellion again. A puppet for another coalition, a face for the posters.

And it would be a cold day in hell before he became a face for another cause. He realised that for as long as he lived and breathed at the rebel base, he would always be seen as a poster child. 

He was a living, breathing reminder to any and all insurgents that said  _ look, we have Voltron on our side. We’re nursing their leader back to health. Voltron supports the rebellion. _

 

He knew it was an important precedent. They say that there’s an insurgency in the Daibazaal sector.

That was the real reason the rebellion hadn’t tossed Keith to the side already. He was insurance for the fighters to keep them in line. And as long as the Black lion towered over the base, the fighters would always listen to their higher-ups.

 

Make no mistake, Voltron still ran the show.

  
  


The thought chilled Keith to his bones. He made a decision right then and there. There was no way that he could stay at the rebel base. There were too many prying eyes, and it felt like it was eating him alive.

The attendant had just left the room, and he obediently finished all of his food and swallowed the two red and blue pills. For a petrifying second Keith wondered if this was what the rest of his life would be like if he allowed himself to live like this.

 

Before he knew it, he was running. 

He didn’t know which way the Black Lion was, but he was following the energy that the Black Lion called him to.

Keith knew exactly what this looked like. A manic, former paladin of Voltron who was wearing the same clothes that he won the war in was running down the main halls like a madman. People were staring at him, but it didn’t matter. People would always stare at him no matter what. There would always be talk. Talk would follow him down to the ends of the earth and he would still not find a way to escape. 

The Black Lion roared to life and Keith hopped into it like it was a second skin as Kosmo teleported to his side. Keith didn’t remember Kosmo being in his cast of nightmares, but he was very much real and here.

 

He saw as the rebels tilted their head to the skies as Keith took off.

Keith didn’t know where he was flying to, but he followed the energy of the lions. He followed that same energy that led him to the Blue Lion all those years ago.

Keith saw himself in the reflection of the pitch black glass, and he saw himself in the future. He saw himself and everything he stood for.

* * *

 

Lance barely registered the Black Lion flying overhead until the impact almost knocked him off of his feet.

 

It had been ten months since the war had been won, and Lance hadn’t talked to anyone since he moved here.

 

Oriande’s stars had a distinctly Altean feel to them, and everything reminded him of Allura.

But as the months blurred together, so did his memory of Allura.

Their romance was a whirlwind, but it was so undeniably true. Nobody could refute the fact that Lance loved Allura so deeply and so truly. And as the war deepened and they were caught in the crosshairs, Allura loved Lance, too.

Some of Lotor’s Alteans returned to where Lance was and started a settlement of their own, but they let him stay alone. Lance never really engaged with them, and they were mostly there at the back of his mind as a comforting thought that he was not alone.

He started planting Altean flowers and helping the Alteans rebuild their farms. He had a small hut positioned towards the sun so that he would wake with the warmth on his skin.

In the beginning, Lance couldn’t look in mirrors. His Altean marks would just remind him of Allura. One day he smashes the mirror into pieces. He doesn’t really try and look into his reflection since that instance.

Lance doesn’t talk to anyone either. Sometimes he’ll make conversation with the villagers not because he wants to, but because he  _ needs  _ to. If he doesn’t talk to anyone he just might die of loneliness.

 

It wouldn’t be a bad thing, to die. Lance toys with the idea into the long hours of the night. When he thinks of Allura and how the war is over and there isn’t much of anything to live for. But he continues to wake up every single morning at dawn and continue helping to revive the farmland.

When his first loaf of bread from the harvest is fully baked and warm, it tastes bitter in Lance’s mouth. He can barely stomach down the first swallow.

 

When Lance sees him, he wants to scream.

 

Keith is walking towards Lance as if they had seen each other last night. As if the time between them had never passed.

And Keith thinks he wants to stop and turn around. He wants to fly back to the rebel base and continue his path of self destruction. It’s all happening too fast, and then all of a sudden Lance is staring at Keith.

 

Lance takes a step towards Keith. “What are you doing here?” He breathed out. His voice sounds raspy and slightly cracked.

Keith shrugged. He can feel the tears in his eyes building up in his throat. He looks at Lance, and Lance looks so eternally said.

Keith smiles at Lance pathetically. “You look like shit, you know.” Keith says. It’s the first time he had spoken in almost nine months.

Lance chuckles, but his smile fades as he stares at Keith. The skin sags off of Keith’s cheekbones and he looks too skinny. All the muscle in him had leaned out, and his eyes lack the fire it always contains. Keith’s hair is matted and messy. There’s still blood on his clothes. “You’re one to talk. Coming here, looking like this.”

Keith looked around. There was a hut far into the distance, and they were standing across from each other in the wheat fields at sunset. It looks all too sad and feels all too familiar.

Keith gives Lance a crooked smile. His muscles strain through the effort as he exhales deeply. “Been through worse.”

Lance gives Keith a small smile back, but he can barely look at Keith. All he sees in the former paladins is Allura. Allura’s ghost haunts him wherever he goes. His smile falters and he reverts back to his mournful frown. “What  _ are  _ you doing here, Keith?”

Keith’s small smile fades. “Rebels were tired of me smashing plates? Heard there was an Altean settlement near Oriande.” He said with a shrug. Lame. So, eternally lame, Keith thinks.

Lance looks at Keith for a long time, almost as if he’s trying to see through Keith’s bullshit. Not like he has any reason to lie, though.

He looks at Keith, and can’t help but pity him. They’ve all got their battles, and from the look of Keith’s ragged skin and disheveled manner of carrying himself, Keith had not been taking it lightly.

 

Lance turned and began walking towards his hut. Keith followed behind him. They walked wordlessly through the wheat plantations. As they neared Lance’s hut, Keith saw the Altean flowers that Lance had planted.

“Keeping busy, I see.” Keith mumbled, scratching at the nape of his neck.

Lance turned around, expecting to see a smirking or taunting Keith. He almost wished for their rivalry. Their rivalry was almost a sense of normalcy between them, and even that was gone. This time, for the better. Where he thought he would see a smirking Keith, he saw Keith who was staring at the ground blankly.

There was only one thought that resonated in Lance’s mind, and it was that there was something terribly wrong with Keith.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Lance asked tiredly. He wasn’t rising to the bait, just confused at Keith’s insinuation.

Keith looked at Lance with a sad frown and shrugged. His posture made it look like Keith was constantly caving in on himself. Where was the strong and defiant leader that fearlessly led them to victory against the Galra empire?

“Nothing.” Keith said, as they entered Lance’s hut. “Certainly been doing more than I have.” He said softly, almost to himself more than anyone.

They sat down across from each other and Lance put two glasses of water on the clay table. “Where have you been?” Lance asks, even though everything in his heart protests against it.

Keith smiles sadly and shrugs. “Where have  _ you  _ been, Lance?” He asks, and Keith knows from the moment the words leave his mouth that it’s an unfair insinuation. It’s almost selfish for Keith to ask.

Lance’s eyes are red. “She left me.” He said, twirling a flower around with his thumb and forefinger.

Some of the old anger rose up in Keith as he stared at Lance in hard determination. “She left all of us.” He said, as he stared out the window. He knows its selfish. Every bone in his body is selfish, but he can’t help it.

“She  _ left me _ , Keith.” Lance says slower. He’s more defeated this time around. “She was supposed to come back!” Lance says softly, but with the determination that he held when they were giving their farewell speech before boarding the IGF Atlas. Hot and ugly emotions rise up inside of him. He doesn’t have time for anger and jealousy in his life, but his heart is a fickle being. His heart loves so openly, and Keith hates it.

  
  


Keith can’t contain his anger any longer. He’s always angry. He was angry since the moment he was born. He was born into a world that spat him out and taught him anger and pain. But his anger is different now. It’s poisoned by his sadness. “ _ You  _ left us too!” Keith exclaims. “ _ You  _ left everyone! You left your parents! You left the team! What the  _ fuck,  _ Lance!”

Lance looks at Keith in shock. As he begins to open his mouth in his defense, Keith crumples to the ground. For the first time since the war ended, for the first time since he woke up with blood pooling at his sides at the hospital wing on the rebel base, he allows himself to cry.

Keith allows Lance to wrap his arms around his body. Keith allows himself to let his cries consume him. 

Both of them lay on the ground for ages. They both let out all the tears that would never stop.

 

They cried and they mourned.

They mourned Allura. Quiet, kind, and brave.

They mourned their innocence. 

They mourned their youth. Their happiness. Their spirits.

* * *

 

Keith sleeps through the whole day on Lance’s couch. When the sun sets and Lance offers Keith some bread, the thought of eating turns his stomach. He says that he isn’t hungry. Keith looks through Lance’s photo album while Lance eats dinner.

 

“It never gets easier.” Keith said suddenly, breaking the uneasy silence between them two. He still wasn’t sure why he came here, but it was the only place that made sense. Keith still thinks that things are happening too fast. That he shouldn’t have been so impulsive. Maybe, for once he should have thought things through.

Lance raises an eyebrow and looks at Keith. 

“It never gets easier.” Keith repeats. “Allura’s death will always haunt you.” He says. He isn’t sure if he’s trying to help Lance or hurt him.

Lance doesn’t say anything, but he continues to stare at Keith.

Keith looks at Lance sadly. “Just like my father’s death will never leave me. Or Adam’s death will never leave Shiro.”

Lance begins to muster up the question that he can never have the answer to. “Does it get easier?”

Keith smiles, and Lance feels the sadness. He feels the heartache and pain. He sees the answer plain as day. “No.” Keith says simply. “It never gets easier. But you get stronger. And you can only get stronger if you move on, and you don’t let the grief destroy you.” Keith said sadly.

“You’ve got so many people to go home to, Lance.” Keith says softly.

“She was my home.” Lance says sadly.

Keith looks at Lance and bites his tongue. He hopes that in his deadened state, Lance wouldn’t have the heart to fight Lance.

 

At one to one hand combat, Keith and Lance were a relatively even match. But Keith hadn’t worked out in months, let alone leave his bed. While the grief had clearly settled into Lance’s eyebags and it sagged on his shoulders like the weight of the world was too much to bear, he was out from dusk until dawn working manual labour in the fields. If Lance insomuch as even slapped Keith, he was sure he would be knocked out cold.

 

“But were you  _ her _ home?” Keith asked, and he bit his lip.

It was a cold insinuation, that Allura never loved Lance as deeply as Lance loved Allura, but it was a question that Keith needed the answer to. He couldn’t go on, watching his friend and teammate run himself to the ground over a girl that was never coming back.

Lance flattened his lips into a thin line. He remembers everything about that night. Most of all, he remembers Allura’s reluctance to go on a date with him. Despite Lance’s protests, neither Hunk nor Pidge would listen to Lance.

Truth be told, Allura was the girl of Lance’s dreams. But maybe some things were better in dreamland. 

 

He remembers the uncertainty, at the very end. Lance remembers asking around for where Keith could possibly be, and he remembers finding him watching the sunset at the top of the Black Lion. The view was breathtaking, really.

Keith heard the clanking sound of someone approaching before he saw who it was. For all he cared, it could have been anyone. James Griffin, even.

It was their final night on Earth. Their final sunset. Shiro was knee deep in preparations, as was Pidge and Hunk. Allura was still at the Altean’s bedside with Romelle right beside her. He had nothing to do, and no family to visit later. He might take a walk down the road and go to the McDonalds he went to when he had some change to spare back when he went to the Garrison.

Keith was used to being alone, but this was a different kind of alone. It was peaceful, but it also left him with a gaping hole in his heart. It made him feel like there was something missing in his life, like something wasn’t totally right.

The next thing he knew it, Lance was standing over him. He had a shy and goofy smile on him, clad with a ridiculous amount of kitchen utensils plastered on his body. “Man, you can be a really hard guy to find when you wanna be.” Lance said, with a shy smile

Keith smiled as he moved over to make space for Lance on the snout of the Black Lion. He looked up at Lance and chuckled. “Hey Lance. Whoa!” He said with a warm laugh. “What are you wearing?”

Lance looked down at his attire self-consciously. “Coran made it for my date with Allura.”

Keith’s spirits plummeted. He didn’t know why, but something turned violently inside his stomach. He doesn’t know why, but Lance makes Keith’s insides feel warm and fuzzy.

He remembers distinctly when it first started happening.

* * *

 

It didn’t matter that Lance hated Keith, because Keith was pretty sure he’d rather be saved by Keith than killed by the literal alien inside the castle. Keith was born and bred as a fighter, as a pilot. He had a distinctly human urge to save people. It was a universal feeling, to make sure that no one gets left behind.

And Keith didn’t actually hate Lance. Not enough to leave him in a coma to die.

Even if Keith hated Lance. Shiro was inside and handcuffed. Keith needed to get into the castle to save Shiro, or so he rationalised.

The forcefield quickly erected itself and made an impenetrable wall between him and Allura and the others.

Allura sank down to the ground and untangled her messy knot of hair. Bright silver curls tumbled down her shoulders. A sheen of sweat glistened off of her face, and she had a soft smile on her face despite their dire circumstances.

In that moment, Keith knew exactly why Lance had a crush on Allura. And why he could never compete with that.

He wasn’t thinking right. Keith needed to get inside and save Shiro. That was the mission. No more, no less.

 

   The Galaxy Garrison held a spring break crash course on self defence that was open to all students. Naturally Keith attended, but no basic self defence or sparring with himself in the barren desert could possibly have prepared him to go up against the likes of those that humanity had never seen before.

Keith didn’t know much about Sendak, only that he was eight feet tall, had a robotic arm, and was all impenetrable force.

He was pinned down, and Keith knew that Sendak had called for backup on the way. The goal was simple—to defeat Sendak and regain control over the Castle of Lions. The execution, on the other hand, was a little more complicated. Allura was occupied with two other Sentinels and Pidge was ruthlessly hacking into the Galran malware that they installed into the mainframe of the Castle.

Shiro was kicking and trying to wriggle free of his binds, while tirelessly pleading for Lance to come out of his coma. There was no escaping.

Keith never expected to die like this, but at least he died defending himself. He died doing what he loved the most, using his pure adrenaline and trying to best others.

 

He braced for impact. Where he was anticipating bright purple flashes and searing pains, he felt emptiness. Keith’s ears rang sharply as a bright beam of blue light sent Sendak unconscious.

Keith’s movements are like clockwork as the adrenaline rush fades and he sprints over to Lance.

Keith can’t exactly process the fact that Lance saved his life. “We did it.” Lance said with a satisfied smile.

As Shiro gets released from his handcuffs, Keith smiled as he held Lance’s hand. Tension riddled his nerves, and this very well could be the end of Lance’s life. He needed to hold Lance’s hand, just to prove that he was there for him.

Just to prove that he was ready to let go of this silly rivalry that never happened.

Lance’s smile is soft—softer than Keith expected. “We are a good team.” He says, as his eyes flutter shut and he collapses.

 

The first thing Keith thinks is; this is the first person I’ve seen die. And he’s going to die talking about us. Keith realises, and the idea scares him.

He may have just gotten to know Lance, but Keith was certainly not ready to watch him die.

Lance was too young to die. He had a future. He was a warrior. He saved Keith’s life. 

Keith’s heart rate accelerates and then plummets as he can’t feel a pulse. Maybe its because he can’t stop shaking and there’s two layers of armour against every inch of Lance’s skin, but there’s no pulse where there’s supposed to be. “We need a medic!” Keith yelled, his voice trembling.

Allura perks up and sprints over to the duo. Keith is all raw nerves and brute force as he sits to the side of Lance, wrapping one arm around his shoulder and the other in front, rocking Lance back and forth. “It’s okay.” Keith repeated, over and over again. “It will all be okay.” Lance’s eyes quickly flutter open, as his breathing becomes irregular and sporadic. Keith’s tears begin to fall, as he wraps Lance closer in his arms.

* * *

 

Keith coughed, and tried to sound nonchalant. “A date with Allura? Well done, Lance.” He didn’t know what to say in these situations. He had never been on a date before. But he did know Lance. And Lance had been after Allura for as long as he could remember.

Lance offered Keith a small smile. “Thanks, Keith. But it could be our last.” He sighed as he took a seat beside Keith. The setting sun painted both boys’ skin golden. “I can’t keep up with all these Altean customs. I just can’t get them straight.” Lance admitted.

Keith coughed as he cleared his thoughts. Lance always came to Keith for real advice. They were never ones to joke around, and Keith felt like whatever words he would have said would matter tremendously. “Listen. If she’s going out with you, it means she likes you.” Keith says, as he looks at Lance fondly.

How did they get to this? How did they go from bitter rivals to the best of friends? How did they get  _ here _ , against all odds? “She likes the annoying, stupid, Earth version of you.” Keith says, and he hopes that his eyes could convey all the feelings he cannot say.

_ Maybe I do, too. _

Lance laughs. In this moment his laugh is angelic. There is no war. There is no future of death and decay and there is no negativity. “You watching the sun set?” Lance asked, after a comfortable silence that seemed to stretch out into eternity.

Keith looked at Lance again, and then tried to fight his blush. “Yeah. Might be a while before we get to see it again.”

Lance nodded his head in agreement. “I’m really gonna miss this place.” He admits, and he means it. Lance is going to miss surfing, and the ocean, and the rain. He’s going to miss certainty and family and freedom. He would miss it all for the rest of his life. These days that the war stole from him he will never be able to get back.

Keith looked at Lance again. “That’s why we’ve got to end this war, and we’re gonna do it with the Lance that’s the Paladin of the Red Lion.” He looks at Lance, and if the timing was just a little better, he swears he just might kiss him.

But the timing was never right.

Instead, Keith decides to pour his heart out in this moment. He might never get a moment like it again. They both might be dead by tomorrow, and Keith will never be able to say what he needs to say. “The Lance that’s always got my back. And the Lance that knows exactly who he is and what he’s got to offer.” Keith says.

Lance smiles. They talk about everything. They talk about the universe and their future and Allura. Keith realises that he really does truly like Lance. He likes the way that Lance’s eyes light up when he talks about Allura. He just wishes it was them.

And when Lance leaves and the sun has fully set, Keith sits in the air of the cool night, wishing that things could have gone differently. But instead, they sat and talked for ages about Allura. About the girl who didn’t even appreciate Lance as much as Lance appreciated Allura. The girl that was always Lance’s first choice. 

 

Keith sat in the darkness for the rest of the night, thinking about how Lance deserved someone who was their first choice.

* * *

 

How did they get to this? How did they get to skin and bones and paper thin hearts?

“I don’t think I was her home.” Lance admits after a painstaking moment. “We were just passing the time. To her, at lease.” Lance says simply.

“Maybe in another universe, we could have made it work. But maybe we were forcing ourselves into a relationship that we weren’t ready for. Maybe if the timing was right, things could have been better.” 

 

Keith knew more than anyone that the timing was never right. 

Instead they sit in the darkness forever and ever and until the sun rises. They don’t cry, or talk, or scream. They sit and contemplate what comes after.

* * *

 

Keith slowly grows back to life, and as does Lance.

With the harvest every month and the never ending supply of food, Keith slowly grows back to who he used to be. Every day Lance expects Keith to pick up his small collection of belongings and fly back to whatever planet he came from, but every day without fail the Black Lion stays firmly planted where it first landed.

With Lance’s help, he builds a hut right beside Lance’s. It’s just as small but it’s  _ his _ . He fills it with some pictures he had salvaged. There’s even space for a small stove.

They work in the farmlands. Sometimes Keith even coaxes Lance so far as to journey into the small village and help out. The red and black lion tower over them every single day they work. The Altean flowers bloom, and Lance can’t stop crying. 

 

It’s not easy. Most days Keith doesn’t have the strength to get out of bed, and there’s nothing that Lance can say or do to help. He has to simply be there and to just understand. 

On most nights, Lance will wake Keith up screaming Allura’s name. On those nights, Keith will laboriously drag himself out of his bed and sit on the rooftop with Lance. They discuss the universe, because there is nothing else to discuss.

 

“Do you think Allura is proud of us?” Lance asks one night, more broken than before.

Keith watches as stars soar above him. “I don’t know.” He whispers. It’s not the answer that Lance expects, but he’s satisfied with it.

“I think she wants us to live.” Keith says simply. “She didn’t shut down and let the grief bury her when we had to shut down the simulation of King Alfor. She didn’t even shut down when Lotor betrayed her.”

“She almost did.” Lance croaked out.

Keith moves closer to Lance. “Almost. But she didn’t. She woke up every day and trained four Earth teenagers into defenders of the universe.”

Lance chuckled morosely. After a beat of silence, he spoke up. “Can I tell you something, Keith?”

Keith paused. “Can I stop you?” He asked sardonically.

Lance laughed, and then stopped short. “I don’t feel like a defender of the universe.”

Keith turned to his side and looked at Lance. In his eyes, Keith saw the whole galaxy. “Me either.” He said simply, turning back to face the stars.

“Maybe it’s time for the universe to defend us.” Lance said with a shrug.

"Maybe." Keith agreed, noncommittal.

 

They fall asleep under the stars that night. And the night before, and the night after.

* * *

 

While Keith is out in the farmlands, Lance is looking for something he left inside Keith’s hut.

 

His hands brush against a pile of over ten leather journals, and it makes Lance stop short.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing until he’s already doing it.

Lance doesn’t know what he expects to find. Keith’s deepest secrets? Lance knew them all by heart, whispered under the cloak of the night or witnessed first hand by himself.

Instead, he sees mirror images of their shared past.

The first drawings start off shakily, almost unsure. Nobody else would be able to interpret Keith’s drawings, nobody but Team Voltron themselves.

He sees a drawing of him and Keith holding Shiro up between them. He sees Keith rescuing him from when Nyma tied him to a tree.

He sees a shaky, charcoal drawing of him and Lance holding hands. He knows it was when Sendak took over the Castle of Lions for the very first time. 

The other drawings are hardly drawings. A smudge of colour against a blank surface. Pine needles and a burned notebook page. Things that only Keith would ever understand.

He sees tens of pages, ripped out. Lance doesn’t want to think about what those stood for.

Many of the pages are blank, but when they start off again, they’re sure.

The lines are harsher and steadier, almost as if the uncertainty of the first drawings had worn off. Keith’s confidence in his art shines, and he sees their past clearer.

He sees him and Lance staring at each other the first time they met. He sees a drawing of him and Keith building Keith’s hut together. Lying under the stars.

A throwback, the time they were on Earth watching the sun set together.

More discussions of them under the stars. Keith begins to write again, in one word-one syllable annotations. 

 

The words become sentences and the sentences become paragraphs. Lance shuts the journal shut, before his heart whispered something he was not ready for.

* * *

 

It has been a year since Keith first landed on Oriande’s star. His hair is once again long enough to tie into a short tail. It has been two years since the war had ended.

 

Lance doesn’t scream Allura’s name every night like he did before, but he does it frequent enough that Keith has to sleep with one eye open.

Keith would never tell a soul, but a part of Keith hopes every night that Lance will wake him up. It gives him a reason to get out of bed. If Lance didn’t wake Keith up, he might just revert back to his old ways of self destruction.

It’s the second wave of Altean flowers that are blooming, and Lance is braiding them into Keith’s hair in the golden sunset. They laugh at an old memory, but it still sounds hollow.

 

“Do you remember when Nyma chained me to a tree, and you had to rescue me?” Lance asks.

Keith smiles and nods.

  
  


Only someone as stupid as Lance would end up chained to a tree. Because of a girl, no less.

“Why should I be the one to rescue Lance?” Keith whined. It just wasn’t fair, considering Lance had shown Keith no good reason for them to put their differences aside.

Shiro looks at Keith sharply. “Your lion is the only one fast enough to fly through the asteroid belt without being obliterated. It  _ has  _ to be you, Keith.”

Keith sighed, and stomped off to his lion.

As he flies in, Keith thinks of Lance.

It’s impossible for Keith not to think of Lance, considering he’s on a rescue mission to save the damn boy.

If Lance would say the word, Keith would have ended their rivalry already. He didn’t even know why there was antagonism between them, but maybe it was time for them to turn a new leaf. 

Keith made a promise to himself. He needed to end their rivalry, even if it killed them.

For the sake of the team, for crying out loud.  
  


 

“I got your lion back, Lance.” Keith said, as he awaited the crackly static response to fill his visor and flood his senses with Lance.

“Thanks, Keith.” Lance said, and it was probably the least sarcastic thing that Lance had ever said to Keith. “Now, could you come here and unchain me?” He said pleadingly.

Keith grinned to himself, as Lance was pleading for Keith to unchain him. “What's that? I uh, you're cutting out I can't- I can't hear you.” He said teasingly.

The red lion was circling Lance, and he saw a hint of a smile appear on Lance’s face. It made Keith’s insides feel warm and happy. "Oh come on, I thought we bonded! Keith? Buddy? My man?" Lance said desperately, though his face was all soft smiles and warmth.

_ I thought we bonded _ resonates in Keith’s mind.

 

They did.

  
  


 

After all this time, the war still haunts them. It weighs on their laughter and makes them feel uneasy.

When the sun has fully set and the stars have come out as they do every night without fail, Keith looks at Lance.

“Do you want to go back into space?” Keith asks. It’s not the first time they discussed going back into space. They frequently debated the pros and cons of leaving their new semblance of home, but they always settled on the resolve to return when the war felt further away.

They always talked about going back into space. They talked about how they always had such little belongings and if the universe called them to greatness once more, they would be airborne and at their place of requirement within the hour.

“Yes.” Lance answers immediately, and that was that.

They began preparations to go back into space, and Lance wanted to tell Keith how tired he was. He was so tired of missing Allura. His dreams all started with him exploring the blue waters and the heavenly skies. He dreams of returning to the planets that felt like an idyllic wasteland to him. But every morning when he woke, he was always on the same farm.

It was slowly killing him, the knowledge that he could ride the Red Lion to the nearest rebel settlement but the cowardice of leaving Allura’s memorial immediately made Lance retreat back inside.

But when Keith arrived one night, it was almost as if the stars foretold it. With Keith’s arrival, the dreamer in him grew. His fears felt irrational, and he knew that Allura would have wanted to see the stars.

 

For the both of them.

* * *

 

They ride off of Oriande’s star in the Black and Red lions. An unspoken promise between them tells they will never be back again. They have all their things packed up and they’re ready to leave. They both know that this star is hurtling so far and so fast that they will never see this place ever again.

 

Keith remembers Lance quietly collecting the last of the Altean flowers and placing them in a vase. When Lance caught Keith staring, Lance shrugged.

_ For Allura. _ He mouthed, the words too heavy to say aloud.

Keith nodded in understanding.

They spend their time bouncing around planets that need their help the most. They help build new shelters on planets that have been totally obliterated. One day, they’ll return to earth, but they never make that agreement. It’s an unspoken promise between the two of them.

 

Both of them don’t know where to start, so they decide to pay a visit to the Arusians. The Arusians were always friendly and borderline treated them like gods, and the planet was similar to Earth’s conditions and weather patterns.

Back on Arus, they have erected a palace in Princess Allura’s name. Lance doesn’t stay anything, but Keith sees the way that Lance’s eyes cloud over in memory of Allura. They stay in two of their suites and watch the sun set. They’re watching as the Arusians down below  perform a dance ritual for the  _ great and mighty paladins of Voltron _ . It’s a tantalising dance, and Keith’s laugh is fluid and genuine. 

Keith wants to bask in this moment forever. 

Lance sneaks up on Keith, holding two glasses of something sweeter than Nunvil. “Enjoying the festivities?”

“Do you ever miss it?” Keith blurts, because it’s the first thing on his mind. Because it was the question that had been screaming in his mind since the war had been won.

Lance set the two drinks down and sat at the ledge across from Keith. “Miss what?” Lance asked innocuously.

Keith sighed and looked out into the distance, where they first saw the Castle of Lions after the blue lion had led them there. “Everything. Nothing. Something. The beginning. When things were simple.”

Lance wants to tell the truth, but the truth that Lance wants to tell Keith is only half of a lie.

 

Lance wants to tell Keith that  _ no, I don’t miss the beginning at all.  _ But it was a complete lie, on second thought. Lance wants to tell Keith that going back to the beginning meant going back to when all Lance thought life would be was hauling around cargo parts and never taking the ships further than the ozone layer. Lance wants to admit that he hates the beginning of it all, because it meant suffering through Iverson’s consistent and never ending barrage of insults and reprimands. It meant sitting through constant comparisons to Keith. It meant building up a rivalry with someone he barely even knew. It meant delaying the natural progression of their relationship. They had to learn how to be friendly whilst everyone was already bonded in a way they thought they never could.

 

But in whole and complete truth, Lance  _ does _ miss it.

He misses the days when he didn’t truly think him and Allura had a chance. Or when things were simpler. When Voltron was powerful enough to take down Galra drones. They didn’t have to worry about RoBeasts and IGF Atlas mutants. 

When their missions were simply reconnaissance, when all they had to do was save lives, liberate camps, and attend parades. When questions of the ethical kind didn’t haunt them with every single movement they made. 

He misses when all he had to do was pilot the Blue Lion and everyone was still soft enough to laugh at his puns. Before all their missions were life or death. When they had time to liberate people and make lasting connections.

 

“Of course I do.” Lance says softly. “I miss when things were easy. I miss when  _ she  _ was alive.” Lance says, voice barely over a whisper.

Keith’s face was devoid of emotion. He still dreamt of flying the Red Lion, and he still dreamt of the day he wakes up and he was never leader of Voltron. He still resents Shiro for making him Black Paladin, no matter what his better tells him. “That’s what I thought.” He says simply, as they watched the festivities down below.

The two of them quickly realise that it’s impossible to stay on Arus. There are too many memories that this planet holds, and it haunts them throughout the day.

Instead of accepting the Arusians kind offer to stay the night, they pack up their things and head for the road once more.

After Arus, neither of them know where to go, so Keith takes Lance back to the Blade of Marmora base. The one that Keith spent the first few months post-war in.

 

When they first land, all of the rebels stare at the duo.

Most of the volunteers remember Keith and his violent outburst, but they were staring at the two of them mostly because they were the  _ paladins of Voltron _ . 

As Krolia, Axca, and Kolivan said their greetings to the duo, Lance tried to hold in his smirk.

“What’s so funny?” Keith asked Lance once they were out of earshot.

Lance grinned from ear to ear. For the first time since the war Lance almost looked like his old self. “You brought us here because you wanted to see Axca!” He exclaimed triumphantly.

Keith looks at Lance and he feels like he might burst into flames. “What are you talking about?” Keith asked Lance, his voice a low growl.

“You and Axca? You abandoned the team and put yourself in the line of fire for her?” Lance asked with a raised eyebrow.

Keith scoffed. “Yeah? Because she saved my life? I was just repaying the favour.” He said with a shrug. They kept walking deeper into the base.

Lance looked at Keith in disbelief. “What about when you and Allura were in an escape pod together because you both thought that you were the reason the Galra could track us?” Lance asked, with an oddly specific recollection of the memory. 

Keith furrowed his brow. “That was... exactly that? Allura followed me into the escape pod, and we were in space.” He said with a shrug.

Lance looked like his mouth was about to fly off of his body. “Okay, well what about Nyma? She told me that she’d rather  _ you  _ give her a ride in the Voltron lion instead of me!” He burst out in shock.

Keith blinked. “We were with Nyma and Rolo to ask for assistance. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Keith replied insistently.

 

Lance looked at Keith blankly. “So, why are we at the Blade’s Headquarters?”

Keith shrugged. “The universe is a pretty small place, once you get down to it.” He said simply.

Lance seemed to accept Keith’s answer as they continued walking down the hall to their room.

 

A few minutes later, Keith mutters something under his breath as he looks around frantically at the halls. “Something is wrong.” He mumbles, and Lance barely catches it.

They stand at the front of the room. Lance raises an eyebrow at Keith, asking if it was okay to enter.

Keith opened the door with the tip of his shoe and took a tentative step forward. Lance followed suit, though he wasn’t entirely sure  _ why  _ they were proceeding with such caution.

Lance waited until Keith took a full step into the room before walking in.

“I knew it!” Keith exclaimed, throwing his bayard down to the ground.

 

Lance’s eyes widened as he waved his hands hysterically. “Woah, woah, woah! What are you doing?” Lance asked frantically.

Keith retracted back to his new, defeated posture. Lance doesn’t want to admit it, but for a moment Keith almost looked like his usual self. “There’s only one bed.” Keith said uneasily.

“Oh.” Lance said, as he dropped his hands and faced towards the one bed.  The two of them had certainly grown closer in the last year, but they were nowhere near the level of  _ bed sharing  _ terms. “It’s okay. I guess I can sleep on the floor-” He began.

Keith looked at Lance with a sad sort of smile, one that Lance could never figure out. He would have found Keith’s smile comforting, if not for the hard and determined look in Keith’s eyes. “I’ll sort this out. You stay here.” Keith mumbled, pushing Lance to the side and assuming his old role of the leader of the Universe’s only hope.

 

Classic.

  
  


An hour later, Keith pushes open the creaky door. The sun had fully set on the rebel base. “I talked to Kolivan and they told me that there were no spare rooms available, so I guess we could try─woah, what are you  _ doing _ ?” Keith exclaims.

Lance shrugged. He had made a bed of sorts on the hard wooden floors out of blankets and pillows. “I asked the attendant for some blankets.” He said sheepishly.

Keith shook his head defiantly. Sacrificing his own need for a comfortable nights rest was something so undeniably... _ Lance _ . “No, no, no, no, no.” Keith repeated over and over, shoving Lance off of the makeshift bed. “I dragged us to this base, I get the floor.” Keith insisted.

Lance stuck his tongue out at Keith, which made both of them laugh. It made it feel like old times once more, and then they remembered the candlelit ceiling they were under. Lance’s face falls and he wipes the comedically extravagant smile off of his face, and tried something softer. “I’ll take the first night. You can sleep on the floor tomorrow night.” He said with a soft smile.

Keith finally agreed and sunk into the bed, on the promise that Lance would let them take turns sleeping on the floor. But knowing how irritatingly selfish Lance was, he knew that they would put up a fight every single night.

Fucking ridiculous.

* * *

 

The next evening, Keith spends it on the floor. The evening after that, Lance stays on the floor. On their fourth night, Keith can’t sleep. The sheets smelled like Lance, like salt water and warmth.

He welcomed the insomnia, as it was better than not leaving the bed for days. It quickly dawns on Keith that it had been weeks since he last stayed in bed for over two days. Progress was slow and tedious, but he was slowly progressing.

Keith hears Lance scream for Allura just as he drifts to sleep. In a sickeningly sinister way, Keith welcomes Lance’s screams. It’s more familiar than anything in the room.

He’s one foot into his dream that he never got kicked out of the Garrison when the screaming stops. 

 

And Lance starts screaming Keith’s name instead.

 

Keith doesn’t know what it means, but it catches him off guard.

He lies frozen in his spot on the floor for the rest of the night. It haunts him the whole day as they work to get a piece of collapsed roof salvaged.

 

As they sweep up the floors and play with the little children that wander around the base, Keith thinks about it. He thinks and thinks and thinks about it because his mind will not let it go. His mind was hung up on a grainy memory dark into the hours of the night and it will forever be burnished into the recesses of his mind. Keith spends his free time thinking about it, but he almost always gets his train of thought interrupted by real-time Lance’s laughter or soft smile. 

 

By the time they’re ready for bed in the evening and it’s Keith’s turn on the bed, he almost forgets about Lance screaming Keith’s name in his dream entirely.

Until they’re late into the hours of the night, and only four of the seven candles are still lit.

Keith doesn’t know what to do, but he thinks that he might never be able to live with himself if he continues to let Lance scream his name in his dreams and not do anything about it.

Keith crawls down from the bed, and tries to shake Lance awake.

Lance rises from his sleep-induced terror slowly, and he jumps at the sight of Keith’s nebulous eyes staring back at his own.

 

“What’s wrong?” Lance asked in alarm. He was awake and ready for battle, just like Voltron had conditioned them to be.

Keith smiles softly, and he finds peace where he expects to find sadness. “Nothing’s wrong.” He said, after waiting for a beat of silence. “I heard you screaming my name in your sleep.” He admits sadly.

Lance looks at Keith as if he was a deer caught in headlights. “Oh.” He said defeatedly. “Sorry.” He said, crawling back into his sheets. “I’ll try not to wake you up anymore.” Lance said, suddenly quiet and resigned. 

Keith stared at Lance as if he totally didn’t believe what he was hearing. Lance chuckled and pushed Keith off of him. “Seriously.” He said, with a two note laughter. “Go back to sleep, Keith.” 

Keith nods sleepily and lies back in bed, but he has a hard time falling asleep. Keith isn’t sure how much time passes when he hears Lance’s voice rise up.

“Hey Keith, are you still awake?” Lance asks. It sounds like the voice all his nightmares talk to him in.

Keith breathed in deeply. “I’m not going anywhere.” He said quietly.

“I know.” Lance whispered, their echoes bouncing off the walls. “I had a dream I lost you.”

“You won’t lose me, Lance.” Keith says, as the words  _ I had a dream I lost you _ scream in his mind. “Why do you think I came back from the Blade?” He says, but Keith isn’t entirely sure why he says so.

Lance either doesn’t hear what Keith just said or is too tired to process what he meant. Keith hopes for the latter, the lesser of two evils.

Lance’s voice rises from the dark just as Keith begins to drift off. “You can’t die on me, Keith.” Lance cries out, and it sounds like a wounded animal.

“I haven’t died on anyone yet.” Keith says simply, as he remembers the close calls that Lance had been through. He remembers when Sendak took over the castle, and Lance slumped into Keith’s arms.

 

“Goodnight, samurai.” Lance says at last, succumbing to the tendrils of sleep.

“Goodnight, loverboy.” Keith says after many hours, but only the darkness and silence can hear what he has to say.

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t move the next night around from his spot on the floor when Lance calls his name. He has faith that Lance can battle with his own demons, because it’s the only way to survive.

His heart aches every time he hears Lance scream out his name, but his heart twists and wrenches when Lance starts crying.

There’s a beat of silence, and Lance speaks up. “Keith?” He asks, unwary. Lance’s voice is so unsteady it sounds like it just might snap in two.

“I’m here.” Keith responds. It had always been their classic response to one another. The reassurance that the other was  _ there _ .

“Do you ever dream of losing everyone?” Lance asks earnestly.

Keith thinks the question over. “When I sleep, I do. But I don’t sleep as much as you might think.” He says.

 

Lance peers over at Keith on the floor and shuffles over. Wordlessly, Keith climbs into bed. Lance is underneath the sheets, but Keith lay atop. “Most of the time I think. I think about how the Galra have longer life spans than humans, so I probably will outlive Shiro and Pidge and them.” He says softly. It’s a truth too cruel to admit, even to oneself.

“Will you outlive me?” Lance asks. He feels like a small child.

Keith sighs. “I don’t really know if you’re Altean or if you have the mark of the chosen or  _ whatever _ , but we might outlive everyone. If we’re unlucky.” Keith says morosely.

“I don’t wanna lose you, Keith.” Lance admits. Though he had said it more than once, the phrase never lost its meaning.

Keith looked up at the ceiling. “It feels like you’re just finding me for the very first time.”

* * *

 

For the rest of their stay at the rebel base just outside the Daibazaal sector, Keith and Lance start sharing a bed.

It’s easier that way, both on their backs and in their hearts.

Some nights, Keith will wake to Lance screaming his name more than Allura’s. On those nights he holds Lance tight even if he doesn’t know what that means for them.

 

The temperature starts rising just as fast as the land begins to cool. Before they know it, the swallowing heat of the candlelight makes it impossible to sleep fully clothed. When they wake up some nights tangled in each other’s limbs and half-naked, it becomes almost routine.

In the morning, they pretend like there’s nothing between them. And maybe there truly is nothing between them, because neither of them know what it means.

At night they crawl into bed and help each other drag out the demons. The path is a little brighter with someone lighting up the way beside you. The bed of blankets is still on the floor, but it isn’t fooling anybody.

 

It’s their final night, and both of them slept through the morning the night before. Neither of them know where the future will take them, but  _ Keith and Lance  _ suddenly become a singular noun. Both of them are okay with that.

Lance is tracing circles on Keith’s bare chest. “Do you ever want to go back to Earth?” He asks Keith quietly. It was a question neither of them had ventured to ask.

Keith looks at Lance, and some of the old defiance rises in him. “No.” He says finally, hammering the last of the nails in the coffin. “I never want to go back.”

Lance stays quiet for a second. He thinks of his family, but he knows they will never need Lance as much as Keith needs him. As much as they need each other. “I don’t think I want to, either.”

Keith stays silent, and it’s not the reaction Lance was hoping for. In truth, Lance isn’t entirely sure what the reaction was that he wanted, but it wasn’t an inappropriately apt silence.

Keith shoves Lance off of him as they sit in the bed across from each other. “Are you just saying that because of me?” Keith asks forcefully. It’s the question of a kid that never got his way. That never got the answers he wanted to the questions he asked.

“Would it be such a bad thing?” Lance asked, deftly dodging Keith’s question.

 

Instead of expecting Keith to cry out or yell, Keith’s face softens. He moves closer to Lance, and Lance swears that in this moment this was the saddest he will ever see Keith be.

“What happened?” Keith asked. Lance thinks for a second that Keith motioned to stroke his cheek, but Keith stops midway and lets his arm fall. “What happened to the Lance that I used to know?”

Lance stayed silent.

“What happened to the Lance that loved surfing? The one that cried when he first saw the rain? The Lance that would give anything for his family. The Lance that sacrificed it all just to get into fighter class? What happened to the Lance that dreamt of exploring the stars?” Keith cried out desperately.

“How did the wild, foolish, and eclectic Lance become a mourning farmer?” Keith asks, because he knew that life was too short for him not to ask the tough questions.

“She left me.” Lance answered simply. But the words feel like a farce so far away from what he used to feel. They feel defensive, and no longer carry the same weight.

Keith’s eyes ignite with fury. “She left all of us! And when she left, you did too! Where were  _ you  _ when I needed you, Lance?” Keith asked, and it makes tears pool at his eyes.

 

Kissing Keith felt natural.

 

That was the first thing Lance thought.

Kissing Keith was nothing like kissing Allura. Kissing Allura was all symphonies and sparkles and fanfare. It felt like possibility and new love and fresh hope. Lance kisses Keith, and it feels like he had been doing it for ages even though it was their first.

Maybe Lance was so caught up in worrying that it would just be a matter of time before Lance lost Keith that he never thought of what Keith felt.

 

As he looked into Keith’s eyes, he saw a boy terrified of losing more people. 

Keith was just as terrified of losing Lance as Lance was.

 

“You won’t lose me.” Lance promised.

 

_ You can’t promise me that.  _ Keith thinks. 

_ I don’t believe you.  _ Keith thinks.

 

But he kisses Lance instead,

* * *

 

In the morning, they walk down to the lions together. It’s in the middle of the morning rush but it all feels too silent. They spent last night exploring the secrets of each other’s bodies and their own hearts. Both of them have no words. The war had drained them dry.

“I love you.” Keith whispers, as they talk about nothing in particular.

Lance’s breath hitches. The last person he said those words to died on him, and he can barely look Keith in the eye. He didn’t know how long Keith had felt that way, but Lance was still testing out the newness of it all. He’s just not ready.

Lance takes Keith’s hand. “I’m not pressuring you to say it.” Keith says slowly, as he keeps his eyes trained ahead.

Lance nods and smiles at Keith.

Lance may not say it, but he feels it. He feels it in the hope that Keith brings him when he’s alone. He feels it everywhere, and it’s the purest sort of love.

 

Maybe, Lance had loved Keith all along. It had always been him.

* * *

 

It doesn’t get easier. The battle with yourself doesn’t get softer.

They’re walking in a green expanse in Olkarion three months later. Some of the survivors have begun to take root in their civilisation again. Blooming Altean flowers like the ones on Oriande’s stars are scattered everywhere.

 

Both of them take things slow. They spent too long getting caught up in fickle things that didn’t matter to mess up something real.

“I told Allura I would follow her across the universe.” Lance said, as he walked with Keith hand in hand.

 

Keith laughed. The sadness still lingers in him, but it’s different these days. On the days when life feels impossible and he feels like the world is too big for a boy like him, he will still stay in bed for days. But for as long as he stays in bed, so does Lance. Lance stays with him and kisses him on the cheek and traces the stars on his back. He still refuses three meals a day but he’s getting there. And when the days feel hard but not impossible, Lance is always there.

 

“I’m not asking for you to do that for me.” Keith said weakly. Allura would always be Lance’s first love, but perhaps in time the two of them could grow together.

“Good.” Lance says, stopping short. Keith smiled but rolled his eyes. Dating Lance was a lot more grand romantic gestures and a lot less make-out sessions. But it was a thousand times better than what Keith could ever dream of. “I can’t follow you across the universe.” Lance admits frankly.

Keith feels his heart plummet. How long had it been since Keith told Lance he loves him? How long since Lance never said it back?

Lance continues walking. “I can’t follow you across the universe, because you  _ are _ my universe, Keith.”

Keith smiles and rests his head on Lance’s shoulder. He might never be good with words, but Lance feels Keith’s energy radiating light and positivity.

“The universe is a pretty big place. It's easy to get lost.” Keith says quietly. He didn’t really want to accept that Lance  _ chose  _ Keith, but perhaps it was as the universe foretold.

 

Somewhere in the distant future is a paladin in red armor and a paladin in blue.

There’s a game show, and Lance is nothing but earnest. He wants Keith to go free, because he’s the future.

Keith wants Lance to go free, but he can’t say the true reason why.

Because Lance is headstrong and determined. Because Lance will always be a better leader. Because Lance thinks I am the future, but Lance is all of eternity.

 

Lance rolled his eyes. Dating Allura was all blushing and smiles. It was bubblegum pop music and milkshakes with two straws. It was riding the 1127 train on Paris journeys to London and beyond. 

Dating Keith was more arguing about nothing just for the hell of it and debates about their existence. It was midnight motorcycle rides just for the hell of it and reading ethical morality books on roadtrips in the dark. It was dingy motels and starlit skies. Both of them were blissful.

 

He smiled at Keith. “It’s just like you said before. The universe is a pretty small place, once you get down to it.”

Once you get down to it, the universe is just all the things you love some ways away. But at the very heart, it was a small place of all the things that made you feel your most loved.

Keith shrugged, but he kissed Lance on the cheek. They were slowly growing back to where they used to be before the war, but it wasn’t instant.

In this moment Lance finally understands the difference between needs and wants.

 

Lance  _ wanted _ Allura. He wanted her soft love and pure smiles and a heart of gold. But maybe in the end, he  _ needed  _ Keith.

He needed Keith’s flame that would never extinguish. His thousand yard stares and moments of philosophical epiphany. He needed Keith’s patience and wisdom and kindness. He needed Keith’s fire, his fight.

Lance smiled. They were nowhere near perfect, but at least they would grow. And they would grow together.

Lance says a silent thank-you to the universe. After all his fighting and heartache, things had worked themselves out. He had gotten both, just at different stages of his life.

 

Lance had ended up with someone he _needs_ , not wants.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you want a more optimistically klance ending that still somewhat fits within the realms of canon-vld, i suggest my other (and longer, well written) story "lead (the soldiers home)" this story was the product of 3am anger sessions screaming at lm and jds, but i promise you my other stories are better. this is pure anger and rage in coherent form.
> 
> this was the heaviest story content-wise i had ever written. i had to go deep into my toughest battles with myself in order to write the first half of the story. if you are struggling with mental health issues, talk to someone. it is never too late, and one day your future self will thank you for it.
> 
> just like lance and keith in the story, it is possible to grow. depression shows in everyone differently. healing will not always be consistent, and it is frequently slow. but talk to the people you love. time is short and the universe is only so small, once you get down to it. <3


End file.
